The Barge of Love

Jonathan and Eleanor Tonge were clients of the most prominent picture dealer of the day, Ernest Gambart. After Tonge’s death in 1881 Eleanor married William Coltart of Woodleigh, Birkenhead. Coltart and Sons were ropemakers of Liverpool. They supplied the vast fleet of commercial shipping that made Liverpool the engine for global trade in the 19^th century. The Coltart collection grew exponentially, and numbered such masterpieces of the period as Burne-Jones’ The Annunciation (1863, Private Collection) and Green Summer (1864, Private Collection), Rossetti’s Lady Lilith (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Ford Madox Brown’s The Coat of Many Colours (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and King Rene’s Honeymoon (Tate, London), and Albert Moore’s The Music Party (1868, Private Collection) and The Bath of Venus.